Colin Farrell biography

Dublin-born Colin Farrell is the son of soccer player Eammonn Farrell, who played for the Shamrock Rovers in the '60s. At 15, he deferred from following in his father's footsteps to pursue acting, enrolling in Dublin's
Gaeity school, but left shortly before he landed the role of Danny on the hit series Ballykissangel. The show went on to make Farrell a teen idol and
before he knew it, he had a Hollywood agent and a leading role in Joel Schumacher's Tigerland.

In Tigerland (2000), Farrell stars as a young, Texan roughneck recruit in a Louisiana boot camp, training for Vietnam. After a failed attempt at a
discharge, he tries to get his fellow recruits kicked out instead. In the meantime, he develops an unlikely friendship with a clean-cut, well-bred
idealist. Farrell also co-starred with Kevin Spacey in the gangster movie, Ordinary Decent Criminal (2000) as the youngest member of Spacey's gang of
hoodlums. It was Spacey who suggested Farrell for that part after catching his performance in In a Little World of Our Own at the Donmar Warehouse in
London.

Farrell married actress Amelia Warner in July, 2001, but they filed for divorce in November of the same year. Since then, he has gained as big a reputation for his partying, womanizing and drinking as for his acting ability. His son, James, with model Kim Bordenave, has Angelman Syndrome, a rare genetic disorder. He and his current girlfriend, actress Alicja Bachleda, became the parents of a boy, Henry Tadeusz Farrell, on October 7, 2009.

While attending the 2007 Toronto International Film Festival, Farrell proved himself a hands-on humanitarian when he ran into a homeless man outside a hotel. The man first met Farrell when the Irish actor was shooting A Home at the End of the World in Toronto, and Farrell remembered him. The actor took the man shopping and bought him a thermal sleeping bag, new clothing and luggage. Before dropping the man off with his new goods, Farrell slipped him a wad of cash.

In 2009, Farrell won a Golden Globe award for his performance in In Bruges (2009) and in 2010, he won an Irish Film and Television Awards for his work in Ondine (2010). In 2012, he took on the role of Douglas Quaid/Hauser in the remake of Total Recall. The role was originally played by Arnold Schwarzenegger in the original 1990 film. Farrell then voiced Ronin in the movie Epic (2013), followed by a starring role in the dramatic biopic Saving Mr. Banks (2013) and the period drama Miss Julie (2014).

In 2015, Farrell starred in the second season of the highly acclaimed HBO series True Detective alongside other A-listers Rachel McAdams and Vince Vaughn. He followed this up with a role in the dystopian dramedy The Lobster (2016), a role for which he earned massive critical praise.